Scientists Awaken 30,000-Year-Old Virus in Siberia

Dropping a bomb made out of hand sanitzer is probably a bad idea. But we have to do something, right?

Researchers have discovered a giant, 30,000-year-old virus hibernating in permafrost core samples, and using a combination of modern science and classic fishing techniques – the irresistible dangling of live bait – woke it up.

Simply providing the dormant microscopic organism with an easy host was enough to rouse it from its slumber, driving the drowsy microbe to fulfill it's life's mission and "hijack the mechanisms of the host cell" so as to go forth replicating and mutating to it's (admittedly proverbial) heart's desire.

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It's not the first time something like this has happened. A couple years back, one of the same scientists was responsible for finding another family of massively-sized viruses in Chile that he ominously named Pandovirus, as in Pandora's Box. In keeping with the theme, this newly discovered hefty member of the microorganism kingdom, which is 50% larger than the last, was dubbed Pithovirus, after the actual vessel type – and amphora, or large clay bottle – Pandora legendarily opened unto the world.

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You've seen The Thing, right? That horror movie about an Arctic base overcome by a huge shape-shifting monster who can hide in plain sight? Yep. The fact that Pithovirus hails from Siberia, which as we all know is basically one giant Russian gulag wasteland, is just the Vaseline on this SciFi screenwriter's wet dream of a true tale of terror.

Lucky for us, so far all of these giant viruses have one intrinsic trait in common: While Hell on wheels to an amoeba, destroying them from the inside out, they're harmless to humans. Had you going for a minute there, though, didn't we?

Well, don't rest too easy. Just because none of the discoveries so far from deep inside the rapidly melting permafrost have been dangerous, it's only the tip of the potential pathogen iceberg. Who knows what kind of invisible wickedness was prowling around just as our first hominid ancestors were starting to appear? After all, they did find smallpox in a 300-year-old mummy from, surprise! Siberia.

As your pulse rate and paranoia-stoked OCD level kick into high gear, let's add one more fun fact to the fire: These potential plague producers aren't all lurking in the frozen tundra. Another plus-sized pathogen was found in 2011 inhabiting a woman's expired contact lens solution.